television. He had been in the ascendancy in the early rounds and had knocked down Swaby on one occasion before Swaby won the fight after stopping Maccarinelli in the third round. Maccarinelli has attributed the defeat to his lifestyle at the time, as he spent the build up to the fight drinking and eating junk food, later commenting " I wasn't living the life. There's a picture somewhere of me two nights before the fight, out in town. I shouldn't have been out, and I think I believed my own hype". He later admitted to rewatching the fight on more than one occasion to "keep his feet on the ground. Maccarinelli returned to the ring seven months later to defeat Chris Woollas on points. Between 2001 and January 2003, Maccarinelli embarked on a winning streak, winning a further eight bouts to move onto nine consecutive wins. Ahead of a bout against Estonian Valeri Semiskur, he failed an eye exam as part of his medical before the fight. He later revealed that he had suffered from poor eyesight since the start of his career, but had repeatedly passed the medicals by asking a friend to take the test beforehand and note the answers. This ruse was only discovered ahead of the Semiskur bout when the optician changed the test board without Maccarinelli knowing. As a result, he underwent laser eye surgery before the bout to fix the problem. He went on to defeat Semiskur by TKO in the first round at the Mountbatten Centre in Portsmouth. First world title On 28 June 2003, Maccarinelli fought Bruce Scott for the vacant WBU cruiserweight title. He suffered a nervy start and was knocked down in the first minute by Scott but managed to get back to his feet. Maccarinelli slowly gained the ascendancy and secured his first WBU title in the fourth round after knocking Scott out with a left hook. In doing so, he became the first boxer from Swansea to win a version of the world title. He made his first defence of the title three months laters, stopping Estonian Andrej Karsten with an uppercut in the first minute of their bout at the Newport Centre. His title victory and defence led to him being voted British Boxing Writer's Club young fighter of the year for 2003. Maccarinelli's second defence was originally scheduled to be against Chile's Carlos Cruzat, but his